Hey everyone, and I’m back. I like to start off these podcasts with level-setting. This is not a relationship advice podcast, this is more about humor and dating in my 40’s and things I’ve experienced. These podcasts will range from 5-10 minutes.
Now, let’s point out my sarcastic title. In no world would I believe that this gentleman I’ll be speaking about is someone who got away and I’m missing out. A few things, I will NEVER mention names. Never, ever, because how someone treated me doesn’t reflect how they’ll treat others so there’s no reason to besmirch their good name, well…their name anyway.
So this person is the first person I started chatting with off of a dating app platform. He seemed nice and…he had a job. Okay, low bar, I know. But I’m still new to this ephemeral scene.
One thing I noticed about him is that he was kind of pushy on us getting together. The timing wasn’t great for me to meet up as it was the end of the year, and in my job it gets incredibly busy with meetings as everyone in my group tries to wrap things up before the holidays. My company does a week long shut-down so half of December is pretty much out for a lot of people. This was maybe the second week of December and at the end of the week I was taking off on an international holiday so I had a lot to do in my personal life as well.
I asked him if it would be okay if we met when I returned and he kept trying to push me to meet him even if it was him coming to my house and dropping off coffee. First of all…what normal, single woman, AND a single mom to boot would be like, “Yeah, come on over random dude I don’t know!”
No one. So I told him politely that the timing just wasn’t possible and I would be more than happy to make the time when I returned. He agreed and asked if he could call me. I said yes and then we proceeded to have a two hour conversation. I thought it went well, we laughed, we chatted, I shared some personal things about myself that I don’t really share with anyone…
My personality is one that is playful and teasing, I joked about him using an Android, I meant nothing by it, and he didn’t mention taking offense to it, this part is important for later on, so remember this moment.
We talked about hobbies and I explained that I don’t collect things…I don’t like things that take up unnecessary space, it just isn’t my thing. It doesn’t mean I have a problem with people who do, it just isn’t for me. He has 6000 vinyls. That’s A LOT…and I said, “that’s cool”.
Another thing we chatted about was my trip. And he asked me how much I was spending…which is kind of a weird question, right? I told him I didn’t have a set budget, I was just going to spend what I spent and that’s just how I travel. I feel like I need to explain myself here, when I plan trips or travel, I don’t set myself up for a trip I can’t afford. I make sure I have the money and the reserves to enjoy myself because I am financially conservative in that way.
Right before hanging up he tried to again to meet up with him before I left on my trip and I once again declined and at this point I felt sort of weird and uneasy at what his deal was.
I went about my business then about 2.5 hours later I get a message from him saying something along the lines of, how I’m entitled, judgy, and lastly, and I quote, “who travels without a budget”.
Let’s all take a moment to think about what he said…he claims I’m judgy…and yet…his message. I’m honestly not sure where he got entitled from? Maybe it was my phone jokes, maybe it’s because I travel with no budget, maybe it’s because I prefer to fly business on long flights, I honestly don’t know. I was really taken aback by that response considering we had just spoken for a little over two hours and he hadn’t expressed any particular distaste to my behavior or style of communication. My gut reaction after surprise was I felt bad. I thought maybe I had said something that upset him and the only things I could think of is when I joked about his phone choice and that he had a lot of vinyl. I responded with questions and apologized because I didn’t realize I had been judgy and was met with no response. On top of that, the entitled comment was uncalled for, especially since he does not know me. Let me tell you world, I did not grow up rich, I grew up in a pretty solitary household one where I took a lot of initiative to raise myself. From making sure I got good grades, to signing up for SATs, for getting multiple jobs when I was in high school so I could help pay for my own college tuition and then working multiple jobs through college to get myself through college. So I would describe myself as entitled. Everything I have in my life now, I earned through working my ass off.
Now…when you think of yourself as a nice person and someone basically blasts you from out of nowhere it’s hard to not question what you did wrong. I realized after talking to someone else who is much more experienced than me in the world of online dating, they told me, he was just butt hurt because I refused to meet on his timeframe. And then the feelings of doubt and questioning immediately went away and I realized, it doesn’t matter what I may have said to him that made him upset, what matters is how he responded and how he reacted. And I don’t want to be with someone like that so in my opinion, I dodged a massive bullet.
I am going to end by saying, if someone you don’t know, but claims to want a relationship and wants to get to you know you behaves in a quick and decisive way without discussion, you probably don’t want them in your life for the long-term. You have to question how they will handle real-life, difficult situations if they can’t even have the calm reasoning on what could be a misunderstanding and especially on something so low key.
Thanks for joining me, next week we are going to talk about catfishing…this is a fun topic. I can’t even begin to tell you how many people I’ve spoken with are not real. Until next time! Hope y’all have a wonderful week
